


Hooking up at the apocalypse (because there's never gonna be a better time)

by TottWriter



Series: Shards of Reality [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Well not much, apocalypse au, camping trip, it's not angsty tho!, prequel to the most uplifting apocalypse I ever wrote, slightly ambiguous relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 03:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16694212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TottWriter/pseuds/TottWriter
Summary: Sitting by a campfire with their bags packed, having just finished a long hike... it was a good afternoon. The sky was tinged a glorious shade of red to the south—Hold on.“Shit, is there a fire somewhere?” Takahiro asked, nearly knocking over their own in his haste to get to his feet. “Can you smell burning?”“You literally just set light to one,” Matsukawa pointed out.





	Hooking up at the apocalypse (because there's never gonna be a better time)

**Author's Note:**

> This was the second of my two stories written originally for the Seijoh Third Years Zine! You can read the other [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16670413), if you haven't already! (It's...somewhat less ridiculous.) 
> 
> In terms of _this_ story, it also serves as a prequel to [Riding off into the dawn (because sunset is too cliché)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11579022), and forms part of my larger _Shards of Reality_ AU, which can for the most part be read in any order and ties together a lot of different one-shots, along with a few of my longer works!
> 
> You can expect some high-key ridiculousness.

It wasn’t the first time Takahiro and Matsukawa had gone camping together; it wouldn’t be the last. But there was something…something different about this particular trip, and it wasn’t just the fact that the woods were far quieter than Takahiro had ever known them to be. Particularly in the summer, when there was normally a regular crowd of birds and insects to harass them.

“I swear—it’s been bad enough the last few days, but tonight there really aren’t enough bugs,” he muttered as they set up the fire for their final dinner before heading home.

“And you’re actually claiming that’s a bad thing.” Matsukawa replied, deadpan. The only outward sign of his amusement was a single raised eyebrow.

“Well it’s not right! I hate bugs as much as the next guy—”

“Could have fooled me.”

Takahiro glared at him briefly, noting the tiny upward curve at one side of his mouth. “I’m just saying. It’s weird.”

“What’s weird is that you’re taking so long to light a simple fire,” Matsukawa said. “I’m starving. Hurry up! Anyway, maybe we just got lucky for once, finding a spot less busy than normal. Or maybe it’s because everyone else is cooking already, and the bugs went to bother them instead.”

The bickering—hell, it was banter, really—helped ease away Takahiro’s concerns. It was familiar. Comforting, in the sort of weird, backwards way that only heckling a damn good friend could be. He put the strange absence of bugs to annoy them out of his mind. Sitting by a campfire with their bags packed, having just finished a long hike…it was a good afternoon. The sky was tinged a glorious shade of red to the south…

_Hold on._

“Shit, is there a fire somewhere?” he asked, nearly knocking over their own in his haste to get to his feet. “Can you smell burning?”

“You _literally_ just set light to one,” Matsukawa pointed out, but he did at least sound a little unsettled.

Takahiro was justified in his concern too, because just a few minutes later the smell of burning grew a lot stronger than their campfire could ever have _dreamed_ of being responsible for. They didn’t bother sticking around any longer than it took to rapidly pack up their stuff.

“You think the forest caught light?” Takahiro asked, as they marched their way back to the bus stop.

“It doesn’t really smell like woodsmoke,” Matsukawa replied, “But I’m not about to take that risk, frankly.” He sighed. “It’s a shame to cut things short, but I guess at least it’s just by a few hours.”

 

* * *

 

The walk back to the bus stop wasn’t long, but the wait at the end of it was.

“I’m pretty sure it ought to have been along by now,” Takahiro said at last. He checked his phone—they’d been stood there for over an hour. “Something weird is going on.”

Matsukawa nodded. “You up for walking it? We can flag the bus down if it decides to show up along the way.”

“Well, it’s gotta beat waiting around forever,” Takahiro replied. He hefted his bag on his back. “Let’s go.”

There were no other cars as they walked. Occasional birds flew overhead, soaring northward arrow-straight, but aside from that there was nothing—not even the usual sort of wildlife they might have expected along the roadside.

Matsukawa remarked that the silence was unnatural a good dozen times as they made their way back to town. Takahiro wasn’t about to disagree. It was _creepy_. He couldn’t wait to get back to civilisation and normality.

Only, when they finally reached the outskirts of the town, there was no normality in sight. Quite the reverse in fact. The red glow on the horizon was dead ahead, accompanied by billowing clouds of black smoke in multiple places. Not only that, but as they walked through the suburb streets, there was no one in sight. Cars had been abandoned in the streets, doors wide open.

“Did we miss something?” Takahiro asked as they turned onto a wider road and were met with the same general sense of abandonment. “Where…where are all the sirens? Where are all the _people?_ ”

Matsukawa didn’t say anything. In all honesty he looked as lost as Takahiro felt.

For a few minutes they just stood staring at the tableau in front of them: smoke billowing out across the sky lit by the ruddy glow of flames; cars abandoned where their drivers had apparently fled. Faint voices were coming from one of them—hardly audible above the idling engine, but present nonetheless.

The spell was broken by the sound of a distant explosion, and a brand new pillar of smoke on the horizon. They turned too late to see the flash which had obviously preceded it, but by the black clouds, apparently something pretty impressive had gone up.

Takahiro swore, because it was a lot better to get angry than to be spooked out of his mind. “What the _hell_ is going on?”

“We probably ought to find out,” Matsukawa said. He was obviously attempting to keep his voice level, but there was a wobble as he spoke. Takahiro certainly couldn’t blame him.

At some point along the way, they’d started walking close enough that they could have held hands. Takahiro was keeping on top of his halfway subconscious desire to do just that, but it was a close-run thing.

They homed in on the car with voices, although unless someone was hiding in the footwells, it seemed that they were coming from the car radio. Either way, it seemed a better option than attempting to pass it by.

_"...have a doomsday situation upon us. Emergency services will continue to function for as long as possible but if there is anyone out there still listening, you are advised to stay at home unless it becomes too dangerous..."_

Takahiro’s heart was hammering away right up there in his throat as the broadcast played out. How the hell could anyone stay so calm in the face of...what, the end of the world? He felt sick, and the feeling redoubled when the presenter reached the end of his speech and, after a brief tone, it began again from the start. How long had it been looping, playing to an empty street, before they arrived to hear it?

Matsukawa perched on the edge of the passenger seat of the car, letting his bag come to rest on the ground by his feet. He stared out ahead of him blankly.

"We missed the apocalypse because we were _camping_ ," he said eventually, his voice strained and weak. It was the worst sound Takahiro had ever heard. "We..." He fell silent, shaking his head.

It about summed things up. There weren't any words, after all - what could anyone hope to say that captured the awful, gut-churning feeling which went with knowing that _everything_ had come to an end? That was it—game over.

...Except it wasn't, was it? They were both still there. Matsukawa was right. They'd been overlooked. The end of the world had come and they’d been left behind, and aside from a few parts of the city having caught fire—petrol stations, most likely—the world seemed relatively intact.

"Well, now what?" he asked, after the sort-of silence had stretched on a while. "I mean, we...we can't just stay here in the street, right?"

Matsukawa stared at him. "The world just ended," he said flatly. "Even if the radio broadcast was just a really elaborate prank, how do you explain everything else?"

Takahiro looked around. "Well, yeah, but, seems to me it’s all still here. Just...emptier."

He fell silent. It was a _lot_ emptier. And this was just the outskirts. If they went further into the city, would they find anyone left? The radio presenter had to have lasted long enough, so it couldn't be that everyone was gone, could it?

"No more school," Matsukawa said eventually. "Damn, I did that Japanese lit essay for nothing."

Takahiro snorted. " _That's_ what you're worrying about? What about dinner? We never did get to eat."

Matsukawa's level expression didn't falter once as he looked first at Takahiro and then at the smoke on the horizon. "Fancy making a go of it then?” he said. “We could head back to our places and grab whatever we think we'll need. I don't think the fires are in our part of town."

"And then what? We ride off into the sunset together?"

Matsukawa shook his head. "I like dawn better," he said, meeting Takahiro's eyes. "New day, new life and all that. You okay with it being just the two of us?"

There was something in his expression which caught Takahiro off-guard. A question which would probably have been awkward and stilted if they'd ever put it into words. Well. Good thing they'd never have to.

Takahiro held out his hand, grinning. "Sounds perfect,” he said, and despite everything, realised he actually meant it.


End file.
